Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Another Partition Failure

Muskeg Man - congrats on a fine buck!

Just based on my own favorable experiences with the standard Partition, I think you'll do just fine with them when your supply of treasured "gold" partitions runs dry.

Regards, Guy

AMEN! Except for the heavy weight hardcasts I couldn't think of a better all around 45/70 bullet.

Great buck and that is a beautiful picture, wish we got snow like that!

Well, I sort of agree - any bullet recovered has underperformed IMO... Tho on a raking shot like this I'll allow that it is OK. I used Partitions ( and several other Premiiums) for quite a few years on various game and in vrious calibers. I can recall only one which I recovered (other than into the skull "insurance" shot at close range. Looked just like the OP's, too- and performed exactly as designed to. Hardly an "underperformace", when it meets design goals... and kills the critter dead.

I've largely gotten away from Premiums myself- just don't see the advantage of the extra cost in my hunting, unless their accuracy is significantly better than any plain-jane.

In the last month I've broadside shot 3 caribou (see Alaska Forum)- a cow about the same size as those dinky deer - - and two pretty good sized bulls with a .260 Rem 725 SA, using 140 gr factory Corelokts from 200 yards to WTFOT beyond my 400 yd rangefinder's range. Of the five hits (there were a couple ranging shots in there.... ) two did not break bone either entering or leaving or both . One bullet broke TWO large bones (humerus, just below the shoulder blade joint) on the way thru, at just over 300 yards. On the latter, I recovered two equal sized bits of lead about half the size of a pencil eracer each on either side of an exit wound presumably caused by the jacket, remaining lead, and possibly some bone exiting. That was the only bullet recovery I had and instantly dropped the animal, all others exiting the animals. Weight retention was maybe 20 % - probably less if one added the weight of the recovered pieces together.

I suppose to you that "failure" of the Corelokt is an indictment against ever using it again.... I have to admit tho, the other non-bone-breaking bullet did "fail" as a bang-flop (it would have eventually killed) on the previous shot on this animal. Read the account....I'm too embarassed already to repeat it here.

If plain-jane bullets performed as well 40 years ago as they do today due to since improved constuction and quality control, the NP might never have been invented.

.....NAW....gun nuts being what they are....

In everyone of my NPT kills the bullet has FAILED

To stop. So I really don't know what they look like afterwards.

I would guess I have at least a hundred big game kills with the Partition, from little stuff to Kodiak brown bears. They kill just fine, most of the time. They do not have any magic in them and they have failed to exit way too many times to please me.

And I could live with that if they truly made a spectacular difference in killing. But they don't.

I want every bullet to leave the carcass so I have two vents to drop blood pressure as fast as possible. Several Docs have made it clear thay is key... and my experience backs that up.

But then another huge issue comes up, IMO&E, involving meat loss. On average, a C&C creates a wicked wound with a lot of meat loss. The Partition is right in there with them.

I insist on more with a bullet that I am paying "Premium" prices for. I have shot a ton of stuff with Core-Lokt and Speer bullets... I know what I am going to get when I unzip a critter. The Partition is right in there with them.

Monlithic bullets have shown me a clear and nearly consistently reliable difference. Far more than enough to make me look at the Partition as a good bullet, but far from a Premium. My rather large collection of recovered Partitions tells me they are not the same.

OlBlue shot his Kodiak bear in front of me with a NPT. I shot a Kodiak not very far from his bear with the same bullet. I have shot several more since with Barnes bullets. There is no way I look at them as equals after looking at real world results.

To be certain, they are not bad bullets... but they are not in the same league with the best bullets, either.

There are no "best bullets", only bullets which are better in some situations than others. And, while monos are the better bullet in some ways, the Partition is still the gold standard in premium bullet performance where overall situations- high/low speed, near/far distances, big/small animals are concerned. I think the TTSX may be knocking on the door too, but the monos do not have the same consistency over the broad range that the Partition has proven for decades. That said, when the monos work as they are ideally intended to, there is nothing that exceeds them. But I have collected plenty of copper from animals, all dead obviously, but not all impressively holed or killed.

And I wonder about the part played with very cold temperatures might be. I have shot a lot of 308 Barnes in every iteration they produced and had very uniform performance. I have yet to catch one...

I have shot them in 30-06, 300H&H, 308NM, and 300WM with more than a few of each and in virtually every choice they produced. I have a ton of recovered Partitons in the same range from the same rifles.

I am not saying the Partition is a bad bullet, but it is not close to the expectaions of a "Premium" bullet IMO. The fact they are consistently "caught" and the excess meat damage make them less than "Premium" IMO. With as much real world experience as I have had with them I will be mighty hard to sway...

The barnes bullets I have recovered are .257, 80gr, TTSX from a 25-06 into a Sitka blacktail (my son shot it) at over 200 yards lengthwise. Same bullet and rifle, I shot a caribou bull last month at 20' in a large herd.

Lead has a known and proven track record at low temps. One would think that a space of 100 degrees would be nothing when we're talking a melting point dozens of times greater than where we exist, but perhaps copper does begin to act tougher at a certain reasonably common hunting temperature? Perhaps the Partition doesn't fit some definitions for premium bullets, an obviously arbitrary definition anyway. But it works well in a very wide range of situations. Very few bullets match that. For those of us who frequently encounter a wide range of possible uses, the Partition is, consequently, hard to beat. I load a variety of bullets and, quite frankly, I don't worry about whether I will be successful with any of the ones I load including monos or cup and cores. I do know that sometimes I'm going to get results I don't favor with any of them if they're not ideally matched to the conditions. The Partition does tear things up more than monos nearly always tend not to. Given that, and given that heavy animals can stop just about any bullet, I still like possibilities the Partition affords. It has a bigger 'window' than most of the rest.

I'm happy to be so entertaining to you gentlemen. Nonetheless, I haven't changed my opinion.

From my own experience the majority of Partitions I've recovered from game have looked exactly like the one posted missing the forward half of their lead core. Aparently many of the posters on this forum only look at the recovered mushroom bullet and think the bullet has performed great......but I'm looking at it and asking what happened to the lead in the forward half?? At what point in the wound channel did the lead separate from the core?? And of course, is a bullet breaking apart optimal performance in a big game bullet? Criticize all you want but at least to me the answer is no.

I jumped on the Partition bandwagon not long after they were introduced and have killed a number of deer and elk with them. The biggest reason I left them behind however was their frangible nature......they do have the tendancy of breaking into two pieces particularly if they hit a heavy bone. Again, the bullet pictured at the beginning of this thread is an illustration of this frangible tendancy. I understand the argument that the bullet still killed the deer, and yes, that is the ultimate goal. Perhaps I have higher expectations in a premium bullet however, in wanting one that not only kills the game, but also gives me a perfect mushroom and isn't going to shed half of it's weight along the way. In this regard, the Partition bullet has let me down.

There you have it boys, fire away.

I've recovered Partitions in 25,270,30,and 375.Although I've used them a lot I can't seem to grab any 7mm's in 140 and 160 gr weights,which for me seem to behave "tough", particularly the 160's.But over all not a lot of them.

In comparison to some other bullets out there today, I think of them as a "soft" premium,because the only thing that separates them from a C&C is really that partition, which as we know stops expansion, leaving enough shank to drive forward.They don't retain as much weight as some others,and don't set up as large a frontal area(maybe they do in 40 cal and up, I don't know),but thats OK because they were designed that way,and make up for it with a deep but narrower wound channel.

IME they expand reliably out to 500 yards,and won't quit on shoulders of stuff up to at least elk size if you make a sensible choice in weight and caliber.If I pick the right one,I know that I can take a quartering on or away shot and expect tey will break heavy bone on the near side and still reach vitals,yet still break the same bones on the far end of the wound channels.

I consider them almost ideal for the biggest whitetail and mule deer I hunt and the places I hunt them,always reaching vitals from about any reasonable angle,yet are "soft" enough to expand reliably as far as I have used them.Elk,too IME.

Today there are lots of bullets that provide competition for them and are tougher, carrying penetration,frontal area,and expansion to the next level but I still think they are a safe bet on about anything.The only animals I can think of that might have me looking elsewhere would be Cape Buffalo(never shot one);or for very LR shooting beyond 500-600 yards but I don't do that anyway so for me it's a moot point.

Friend Allen Day killed two Cape Buff with his 300 WM and 180 Nosler Prtition's.

brad yes I remember him mentioning that.

I also remember a couple of touring PHs visiting the states back when there were no 375 partitions being made,and falling all over them selves when they found out a friend and I had about 700 of them.

Things sure were different back then

Yeah, crap... how naive can a bunch of guys be fawning over an obsolete bullet.

Last year I hunted and took an antelope and a good sized bull elk on the same ranch. I used one load for both animals. My favorite, a 160 Nos. Partition out of a 280AI(sorry about that Bob)and it worked well on both. The antelope was DRT, the bull took more than one, but that's because the angle on my first shot was not perfect. The bullet took him at about the last rib and ended up under the skin on the off side shoulder. He was unable to run but still on his feet, so I gave him another. This load is my go to combo on all cud chewers big or small near or far good angle or bad. I have been using this bullet almost exclusively for the past 20 years though not always out of the 280AI and it has never let me down.

I wish they still made the 250 gr 429 Dia Partitions.

Same here. I have about 30 of them saved for a special occasion in my 444.

My 44 shoots them amazingly well.

I've began keeping notes on all my big game animals, as well as those of my companions where I witnessed the shot, 40 years ago. The information always included the cartridge, bullet, scope, range, how many bullets were required for the kill, the path of the bullet (or bullets), and the weight of the animal, whether actually weighed or an estimate.

About a dozen years ago I started on a conscious bullet-testing binge. I'd tested quite a few before then, but eventually decided to really pin down how expanding bullets work. As a result they were all tested in at least two kinds of media, and then on game. As a result I also started including how far animals went after the fatal bullet, as best could be determined.

The notes now list hundreds of animals, ranging in size frm under 100 pounds on the hoof (mostly pronghorn and springbok) to around 1500 (mostly moose, water and Cape buffalo, and bison).

When I say Nosler Partitions kill quicker than bullets that don't lose any or very little weight, it's because that is exactly what the statistics from my notes tell me. I've seen well over 100 big game animals taken with them, more than half by me, and about the same number of animals taken with the Barnes X (in every form since the first model), Combined Technology Fail Safe, Hornady GMX, North Fork, Nosler E-Tip, Swift A-Frame, Winchester XP3, etc.

On average, the animals shot with Nosler Partitions didn't go as far after the fatal shots, and there was also a higher percentage of drop-on-impact lung-shot kills with Partitions.

The quickest killing of the bullets that typically retain 90% or more of their weight turned out to be the Woodleigh Weld-Core, which also happens to typically open wider than most of the other bullets--and also typically loses around 10% of its weight.

I also ran penetration tests with all the premium bullets I could get my hands on. The deepest penetrating bullets were all 100% weight retainers, such as the X-Bullet, Fail Safe and E-Tip--but on average they beat the Partition and A-Frame (which essentially tied for second place) by less than 10%. However, the biggest factor in penetration proved to be frontal area of the mushroom, not weight retention.

On average, the very quickest-killing bullets were those that lost a significant portion of their weight. The quickest killing bullet was the Berger VLD, which often doesn't retain 10% of its weight. After penetrating the chest cavity (which is always did in the animals in my notes, due to its delayed expansion) VLD's often come completely apart. The wound channel is still typically 15-18" deep, which is plenty for broadside shots on animals up to big bull elk in size.

As a result of these hundreds of "field tests" I concluded that retained weight is indeed an indicator of bullet performance. It does increase penetration, but only if everything else is equal. But unless a high weight-retention bullet opens very widely (as with the Woodleigh and, to a certain extent, the Swift A-Frame) that nebulous something called "killing power" is REDUCED by a higher percentage of weight retention. This is because the overall size of the wound channel is smaller, destroying less vital tissue.

Now we have all seen the photos posted here of the damage done by Barnes X's and similar bullets. Believe me, this is nothing compared to the damage done to innards by a Berger VLD. A high-retention bullet punches a hole through vitals, but a VLD blows them apart or turns them into soup. The Nosler Partition often has something of the same effect, especially the lighter Partitions at higher velocities. They're designed to lose the most weight, typically about 1/3.

Many of the Partitions over .30 caliber, especially the heavy models, are designed to retain more weight. This is done by moving the partition forward. Consequently they penetrate even deeper, but still kill pretty damn well. One of the most spectacular is the 286-grain 9.3mm. I've only recovered two of these, one from a big moose and one from an angling shot on a blue wildebeest, but no animal hit with them has gone more than 25-30 yards.

As a result of all this testing, in the past couple of years I've started using more Nosler Partitions again, because I'm confident in the statistics by my notes. In fact this fall I took 7 animals with Partitions, and none of them made it more than 30 feet before falling--and the one that did was a 6x6 elk taken with a 160-grain 7mm, one of BobinNH's favorites.

Oh, Bob, come to think of it, if you ever do go Cape buffalo hunting, Nosler Partitions work fine.

Good post Bob. I always enjoy reading your stuff...